Smiles
by Min Daae
Summary: Mat experiments with some methods of getting out of trouble. On Nynaeve. R&R! Rating to be very safe.


Since a young age, Mat had known he had a way with girls – the same way he had a way with the few dice he saw, or an eye for horses. This smile would get him out of trouble, or maybe even earn some pie or another treat. That bow might get a smile from one of the village girls, and sometimes a dance on feastdays. For some reason Mat had always found trouble as fascinating as girls, and almost as easy to charm. He had quick hands and a quicker mind, and used them to his advantage. But by the age of ten, he had nonetheless been whipped and scolded more times than any of the other boys in his village. Rand might have come close, but only because Mat was able to talk his friend into helping with his schemes, sometimes – like the time they had stolen some brandy and gotten madly drunk. Even the thrashings they got when they were caught were worth that exploit.

But between his two fascinations, girls nearly always won over, and so Mat was always looking for ways to please them. He watched the merchant guards flirting and tried to imitate their moves on the girls of the village close to his age. These usually earned a giggle and a blush, but sometimes the girls just laughed at him and ruffled his hair. This was extremely annoying. His mother disliked him acting as he did around girls, but his father found it amusing, and so he simply had to be careful about acting up around his mother.

Oddly enough, she was also the one woman on whom his smiles didn't work. Yes, his mother was definitely a tricky one. He always stepped carefully around her. Well, most of the time.

But the behavior of the guards that he most longed to imitate was something he heard girls sighing about all the time, something that he didn't understand very well when he first heard the word and witnessed this strange act of affection. It was called a kiss, and girls were always talking in dreamy voices about getting "their first kiss" so he decided that it must be something absolutely wonderful.

It took him some time to realize that a kiss was when one person put their lips on another person's. Frankly, he couldn't understand what was so wonderful about it, but it seemed as though it would please the hard-to-please village girls, so he decided that he should try it, sometime – perhaps as a way of getting out of trouble.

His chance came when he was about thirteen or so. Mat was always getting into trouble, and whatever his age, there was no limit to his antics. But this time, he was sure he was in for it. It was the long infamous time when he and Rand had stolen a jug of apple brandy – he didn't even remember whose it had been, now – and been caught, unfortunately, by the young Wisdom, Nynaeve.

It was the worst person to have possibly found them. Nynaeve had a temper like a badger with a sore tooth, and she seemed to especially dislike Mat, and drinking as well. She was standing in front of him, hands on hips, birch switch in hand – it looked uncomfortably hard – and lecturing him about everything from stealing to drunkenness. He was hardly listening, his mind racing to think of ways to get out of trouble, when he remembered the _kisses. _Perhaps now was the time to try this mysterious charm.

Nynaeve was not much taller than him. He was not quite sure how to begin, so he simply did as he had seen his father do with his mother, once, and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her firmly on the lips.

Nynaeve made a very undignified squawk. When he stepped back, she was red from her chin to her ears, and he was certain it was only half from anger, as she had a slightly foolish smile on her face. A moment later, however, it disappeared, to be replaced by an expression of pure fury. "You dare…" she spluttered. "You insolent…naughty…terrible…_boy!_"

And she whipped him more soundly than he had ever been whipped before. Fortunately, Rand had not been there to see, or it would have been worse. Nynaeve _hated _being humiliated, and this most certainly counted as humiliation.

But as he was limping away, it was not the beating Mat remembered, it was the small smile on Nynaeve's face, her eyes suddenly distant. She didn't seem quite as furious as she had seemed when he had first kissed her. It seemed that this magical kiss could temper even Nynaeve's infamous temper.

_Handy, _Mat decided. _I must keep that in mind. _


End file.
